The Obama justice system - Glenn Greenwald

Highlighting not mine.
[...] Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified.  As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial.  About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective."
Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt:  "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention." [...]

The Library of Congress is being sued because it offered a key job as terrorism research analyst to Diane Schroer, then rescinded the offer, even though she was qualified. In Bushed, Keith Olbermann explains the job was taken away because everything Schroer accomplished was before her sex change operation.

From the ACLU:

This sounds so outrageous, it seems like a joke or something out of "The Onion."

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is demanding that Congress issue a new declaration of war so that anyone that this president or the next one declares to be an "enemy combatant" can be held indefinitely without a trial.

The new declaration of war would make the entire globe — including the United States itself — a “battlefield” where the president decides who will be locked up forever.

With only five weeks left in the Congressional schedule and only six months left in the Bush presidency, Mukasey’s ridiculous power grab should be laughed out of town. But given this Congress’ track record, the Mukasey proposal is no laughing matter. Especially because it also includes a cover-up of the Bush administration’s systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

We can’t take for granted that Congress will reject this outrageous proposal. We have to meet it with an immediate wall of protest that says to Congress: “Don’t you dare.”

I just told my members of Congress to reject the dangerous Bush/Mukasey plan. You can do the same thing here:

http://action.aclu.org/mukasey

Philip K. Dick, Meet George W. Bush by Tom Engelhardt

( Excerpt. Click headline for full story. )

It’s the ‘Oh Shit!’ Moment on Iran

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Rude Pundit: A Conversation in High Places Regarding Torture

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City in a Time Warp
War is pushing Baghdad out of the 21st century and back to a bygone age of ferrymen, midwives, donkey drivers and shepherds.

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

Two years ago today the government (local, state, and federal) failed New Orleans. And all levels, particularly federal, have been failing Nawlins since then. No, that's not entirely true. The government had been failing New Orleans for decades. Two years ago is when that failure came home to roost.

Yesterday on the ABC Nightly News, I saw how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is "repairing" the levee system, with construction that even the Corps acknowledges would not withstand a hurricane half the size of Katrina. ( Read more... ) But we can spend $450 billion and counting to wage war against a nebulous "terrorist threat" be in the middle of a civil war in Iraq.

Salon: The Padilla verdict -- Glenn Greenwald

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

Careful: The FB-eye may be watching
Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

catvincent

Bush bars cruel, inhuman treat of terrorism suspects

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

Government report: Al Qaeda strongest since September 11, 2001

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

Anti-war Republican Rep. Wayne Gilchrest on Iraq, the Bush administration, and the "dissolving" GOP

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

Edwards Confronts GOP on War on Terror

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

FISA rejected zero wire-tap requests in 2006

( Highlights. Click Headline for full story. )

Does Bush Think War with Iran Is Preordained?

My opinion? Probably. And Chris Hedges seems to think so as well. Follow the link to read this very important and terrifying article. Or just click the cut below...

( Read more... )

fooltheworld

dark_christian

Olbermann accepts President Clinton's challenge to assess Bush record on terror in his first 8 months

It doesn't look good for Bush, and seems to support Clinton's assertions. Watch it for yourself.

Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight, Creating More Terrorists

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight
By Karen DeYoung
( Excerpt )

Conventional wisdom on this one has been that the longer we occupy Iraq, the longer we give the militants U. S. soldiers as targets, the more angry the region becomes. As that region sees our imperialism continue unabated, they will be more likely to agree with the fundamentalist Islamists, and more willing to attack us and what we stand for. It's not our freedoms they hate any more, if it ever was. It's our imperialistic agenda, our paternalistic imposition of "democracy" upon the region, our continued support for the rogue nation of Israel and it's unprovoked attacks upon its neighbors.

( Read more... )

Bush Is Gonna Take His Iron Maiden and Go Home:

Here's how you know you've lost your war: Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King said this about detainee treatment legislation: "If we capture bin Laden tomorrow and we have to hold his head under water to find out when the next attack is going to happen, we ought to be able to do it." Let's put it this way: it's one thing to say that in a one-in-a-million Jack Bauer-esque situation, you'd probably break the law and a few fingers to get the info you need so the nuke doesn't go off. But it's another thing entirely to say that you wanna make it the law.
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This is what we've been reduced to as a nation: arguing with each other over how far we can push our notions of "civilized" and still feel good about ourselves. How low can we go? 'Cause, see, once you take one step down on a ladder, the next rung is right there, and the bottom gets ever closer.

The significance of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld by Glenn Greenwald

States Mr. Greenwald: For the past 10 years, I was a litigator in NYC specializing in First Amendment challenges, civil rights cases, and corporate and securities fraud matters. I am the author of the New York Times Best-Selling book, How Would A Patriot Act?, a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released May, 2006.

Nonetheless, opponents of monarchical power should celebrate this decision. It has been some time since real limits were placed on the Bush administration in the area of national security. The rejection of the President's claims to unlimited authority with regard to how Al Qaeda prisoners are treated is extraordinary and encouraging by any measure. The decision is an important step towards re-establishing the principle that there are three co-equal branches of government and that the threat of terrorism does not justify radical departures from the principles of government on which our country was founded.